Solar Warden

The machine Part 106

SW-7 arrived at the landing zone. Owens was flying also back with them. He went to Taylor and informed Ryan that he was on the ground again. With the bikes SW-7 headed to the cave. Then Davis informed Ryan about the plan. So following was then a briefing with the team leaders.

A bit later Newman joined them. "I have everything prepared. But while opening the door, plugging in the spy connector can cut us of if things don't work out as expected. Also I would recommend to retrieve our shot combat drone. It may get in the way and it might be possible to repair it," Newman suggested.

"You want repair it here? It will not be possible to get it up to the Icarus, I guess?" Ryan wondered.

"Yes, maybe it's possible to send replacement parts. What happens if we have to use them again? We might lose another one or two. So changing the numbers here might be worth it."

"If we can do this fast enough, before we act, you have a go. But as soon as I get the order, we have to abort this. I hope then it is not stuck in the entrance," Ryan replied.

"Don't worry. I take care of it," Newman knew how to do it fast.

"Take SW-4 and anyone else you need," Ryan was confident that Newman was done with the movement of the drone till they start the operation. It was also something to keep the other occupied.

Newman, Samuel and the rest of SW-4, each of them took a bike and headed to the combat drone. Samuel and Newman were unarmed, they had the needed ropes and the other stuff with them.

While two of SW-4 guarded, the others connected the bikes with the ropes to the combat drone. Then Newman could with success extend the gears which made it much easier. They used three bikes and started to test. It did work at once. The drone was moving. Newman controlled the bikes remotely. So they pulled the combat drone to the entrance while all were behind the drone pushing a bit as needed. They went out of the entrance. It made some laud noise moving it over the stony ground. This was because of the skids which were close to the bottom. It was not possible to extend the tires further. Also they moved it backward which had some danger getting stuck. In this case they had probably to do it the other way, Newman thought. Now at the caves end came the other problem. Moving it a bit down the hill without the breaks could end up in a crash. Newman had to do some tricks to activate them without electronics. Power was still there. But he had to do some rewiring like he did it with the gear. This time he actually needed something to do it remotely. He had no wireless switch for that. So he used a manual one of the combat drone and stayed on it while they pulled it further.

Samuel was now controlling the bikes. The whole teams were distracted by this. Slowly the drone moved down the hill. Then started to accelerate. Newman activated the breaks as it was getting fast. It worked and Newman could barely hold his position. Then the drone stopped. The others cheered.

"Perfect, we can anchor it with some ropes then we are done," Newman jumped of the drone. The others helped and it was done in no time.

"There is no time left to check out the drone. The Captain informed me that we will start soon," Ryan informed all.

Now the final preparation started.